Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) Read Free

commission it was because I wish to be with my son…and because I need time. Time to think, to read, and to watch my son grow up.”
    “Will you come to see Grant?” Devine asked. “After all, he is the President of the United States.”
    “Of course I will come. I never served under a more complete soldier or a better general. I will come, but the answer will still be no.”
    Devine chewed on his cigar. Grant did need Brionne, but it was more than that. Devine was worried about Brionne himself. He knew something of the dark, bitter moods of the man, of the driving fury that was in him and that could be dangerous even to himself. This was no time for him to be separated from others, so soon after the death of his wife.
    “I wish there was something I could say, James. Ethel is worried about you.”
    Brionne’s mouth twisted wryly. “Colonel, that is one of the very reasons I am going away. I want to be free from pity, free from questions, free from sympathy and curiosity. I want to go somewhere where nobody knows and nobody cares. I have had too much of sympathy for now. Ethel is a lovely woman, but the first thing you know she will be trying to get me married off. You know how women are. She will be saying that I need a wife and that Mat needs a mother.”
    Devine smiled ruefully. Ethel
had
said that very thing not two hours ago.
    They talked then of various things—of the coming presidential campaign, of conditions here in St. Louis, of the hotel where they were staying. Finally, Devine went back upstairs to Grant and the rest of the entourage.
    Alone once more with his son, Brionne talked with him a little, and then he fell into a study. Was he doing the right thing? Was change the only answer? Was it an answer at all?
    Night after night Mat had waked up screaming with fear. And he could not stand it to be left alone with only a woman to care for him, so fearful was he that the renegades might come back.
    They had searched for him that dreadful night, and Mat recalled every footstep. There were times when they had come close enough for him to hear their sullen, muttering voices. He had seen them, he knew them, and he was the son of the man they hated.
    The Southern Hotel’s spacious dining room was one of the finest in the country, and the food was good. St. Louis was busy; it was the gateway to everything that lay to the west. There were people here who knew Brionne, and everyone knew who Devine was; they knew that if Devine spoke to him he must be important, for Devine was the President’s closest friend and associate.
    “Pa? Will I have a pony?” the boy asked.
    “You will have a proper horse, Mat. A man’s horse. We will be doing a lot of riding together, and where we are going there will be no roads, nothing but Indian trails, and very few of them.”
    At first, once his son had been found safe, Brionne had been seized by a sort of madness. There had been a pursuit, of course, and he had been among the leaders. The country had been shocked by the tragedy, and every man who could bestride a horse had been out with his rifle, hunting for the Allards, as they called themselves.
    They had made a run for the mountains, but now they were without friends, even there. The hideouts they once had used were closed to them, for this crime had been something even the hardest of the former guerrillas could not stomach.
    They had fought Brionne, but they knew him for a brave man, and respected him. They knew his wife too, and they would ride with no man who attacked women. The result was the Allards disappeared from their old haunts, and the story was that they had returned to Missouri.
    Brionne refused to accept that. Harsh, relentless, bitter, he rode every trail, going alone into places where companies of cavalry had hesitated to go. Driven by the dark fury that Devine knew lay within him, he had ridden himself into exhaustion. Even his former enemies offered their help, but the Allards were gone. In the end he had